The Young Investigator Program (YIP) aims to attract to naval research outstanding new faculty members at institutions of higher education. As part of the program, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) grants monetary support to award recipients for research and encourages their promising teaching and research careers. Palacios was selected from a group of 193 applicants for the honor, which will include a three-year research grant worth up to $510,000.

Palacios' work under the program will be on "Multi-Terahertz Nitride Transistors: Probing the Ultimate Limit of Deeply-Scaled Device Technology." The project aims to understand the limits of high-frequency electronics and to demonstrate record transistors that can revolutionize wireless communications, Terahertz imaging and sensing.